Alfred Korzybski
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Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski (; ; July 3, 1879 – March 1, 1950) was a Polish-American philosopher and independent scholar who developed a field called
general semantics General semantics is a school of thought that incorporates philosophy, philosophic and science, scientific aspects. Although it does not stand on its own as a separate list of schools of philosophy, school of philosophy, a separate science, or ...
, which he viewed as both distinct from, and more encompassing than, the field of
semantics Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction betwee ...
. He argued that human knowledge of the world is limited both by the human
nervous system In biology, the nervous system is the complex system, highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its behavior, actions and sense, sensory information by transmitting action potential, signals to and from different parts of its body. Th ...
and the
language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
s humans have developed, and thus no one can have direct access to
reality Reality is the sum or aggregate of everything in existence; everything that is not imagination, imaginary. Different Culture, cultures and Academic discipline, academic disciplines conceptualize it in various ways. Philosophical questions abo ...
, given that the most we can know is that which is filtered through the brain's responses to reality. His best known dictum is " The map is not the territory". Many of his ideas were presented in his book '' Science and Sanity'' (1933).


Early life and career

Born in
Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
, Vistula Country, which was then part of the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...
, Korzybski belonged to an aristocratic Polish family whose members had worked as mathematicians, scientists, and engineers for generations. He learned the
Polish language Polish (, , or simply , ) is a West Slavic languages, West Slavic language of the Lechitic languages, Lechitic subgroup, within the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family, and is written in the Latin script. It is primarily spo ...
at home and the
Russian language Russian is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic languages, Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is ...
in schools, and having a French and German governess, he became fluent in four languages as a child. Korzybski studied engineering at the Warsaw University of Technology. During the
First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
(1914–1918) Korzybski served as an intelligence officer in the
Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
n Army. After being wounded in a leg and suffering other injuries, he moved to North America in 1916 (first to Canada, then to the United States) to coordinate the shipment of
artillery Artillery consists of ranged weapons that launch Ammunition, munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during sieges, and l ...
to Russia. He also lectured to Polish-American audiences about the conflict, promoting the sale of war bonds. After the war he decided to remain in the United States, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1940. He met Mira Edgerly, a painter of portraits on ivory, shortly after the 1918 Armistice; They married in January 1919; the marriage lasted until his death. E. P. Dutton published Korzybski's first book, ''Manhood of Humanity'', in 1921. In this work he proposed and explained in detail a new theory of humankind: mankind as a " time-binding" class of life (humans perform time binding by the transmission of knowledge and
abstraction Abstraction is a process where general rules and concepts are derived from the use and classifying of specific examples, literal (reality, real or Abstract and concrete, concrete) signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abstraction" ...
s through time which become accreted in cultures). In 1925 and 1926, Korzybski observed psychiatric patients at St. Elizabeth's hospital in D.C. under the supervision of William Alanson White.


General semantics

Korzybski's work culminated in the initiation of a discipline that he named
general semantics General semantics is a school of thought that incorporates philosophy, philosophic and science, scientific aspects. Although it does not stand on its own as a separate list of schools of philosophy, school of philosophy, a separate science, or ...
(GS). This should not be confused with
semantics Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction betwee ...
. The basic principles of general semantics, which include time-binding, are described in the book '' Science and Sanity'', published in 1933. In 1938, Korzybski founded the Institute of General Semantics in Chicago. The post-World War II housing shortage in Chicago cost him the institute's building lease, so in 1946 he moved the institute to Lakeville, Connecticut, U.S., where he directed it until his death in 1950. Korzybski maintained that humans are limited in what they know by (1) the structure of their nervous systems, and (2) the
structure A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such as ...
of their languages. Humans cannot experience the world directly, but only through their "abstractions" (nonverbal impressions or "gleanings" derived from the nervous system, and verbal indicators expressed and derived from language). These sometimes mislead us about what is the truth. Our understanding sometimes lacks ''similarity of structure'' with what is actually happening. He sought to train our awareness of abstracting, using techniques he had derived from his study of mathematics and science. He called this awareness, this goal of his system, "consciousness of abstracting". His system included the promotion of attitudes such as "I don't know; let's see," in order that we may better discover or reflect on its realities as revealed by modern science. Another technique involved becoming inwardly and outwardly quiet, an experience he termed, "silence on the objective levels".


"To be"

Many devotees and critics of Korzybski reduced his rather complex system to a simple matter of what he said about the verb form "is" of the general verb "to be." His system, however, is based primarily on such terminology as the different "orders of abstraction," and formulations such as "consciousness of abstracting." The contention that Korzybski ''opposed'' the use of the verb "to be" would be a profound exaggeration. He thought that ''certain uses'' of the verb "to be", called the "is of identity" and the "is of predication", were faulty in structure, e.g., a statement such as, "Elizabeth is a fool" (said of a person named "Elizabeth" who has done something that we regard as foolish). In Korzybski's system, one's assessment of Elizabeth belongs to a higher order of abstraction than Elizabeth herself. Korzybski's remedy was to ''deny'' identity; in this example, to be aware continually that "Elizabeth" is ''not'' what we ''call'' her. We find Elizabeth not in the verbal domain, the world of words, but the nonverbal domain (the two, he said, amount to different orders of abstraction). This was expressed by Korzybski's most famous premise, " the map is not the territory". Note that this premise uses the phrase "is not", a form of "to be"; this and many other examples show that he did not intend to abandon "to be" as such. In fact, he said explicitly that there were no structural problems with the verb "to be" when used as an
auxiliary verb An auxiliary verb ( abbreviated ) is a verb that adds functional or grammatical meaning to the clause in which it occurs, so as to express tense, aspect, modality, voice, emphasis, etc. Auxiliary verbs usually accompany an infinitive verb or ...
or when used to state existence or location. It was even acceptable at times to use the faulty forms of the verb "to be," as long as one was aware of their structural limitations.


Anecdotes

One day, Korzybski was giving a lecture to a group of students, and he interrupted the lesson suddenly in order to retrieve a packet of biscuits, wrapped in white paper, from his briefcase. He muttered that he just had to eat something, and he asked the students on the seats in the front row if they would also like a biscuit. A few students took a biscuit. "Nice biscuit, don't you think," said Korzybski, while he took a second one. The students were chewing vigorously. Then he tore the white paper from the biscuits, in order to reveal the original packaging. On it was a big picture of a dog's head and the words "Dog Cookies." The students looked at the package, and were shocked. Two of them wanted to vomit, put their hands in front of their mouths, and ran out of the lecture hall to the toilet. "You see," Korzybski remarked, "I have just demonstrated that people don't just eat food, but also words, and that the taste of the former is often outdone by the taste of the latter." William Burroughs went to a Korzybski workshop in the autumn of 1939. He was 25 years old, and paid $40. His fellow students—there were 38 in all—included young Samuel I. Hayakawa (later to become a Republican member of the U.S. Senate) and Wendell Johnson (founder of the Monster Study).


Influence

Korzybski's work had a positive reception from a variety of persons in the 1940s and 1950s. Robert A. Heinlein named a character after him in his 1940 short story " Blowups Happen". The science fiction writer A. E. van Vogt based his novel '' The World of Null-A'', published in 1948, on ideas from General Semantics. On March 8, 1949, fellow science-fiction author L. Ron Hubbard wrote to Heinlein referencing Korzybski as an influence on what would become Dianetics: Korzybski's ideas influenced philosopher Alan Watts and physicist Fritjof Capra who used his phrase "the map is not the territory" in lectures and writing
"The Tao of Physics", 35th Anniversary Edition
Writer Robert Anton Wilson was also deeply influenced by Korzybski's ideas. The third edition of ''Science and Sanity'' states that in
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
the
United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...
used Korzybski's system to treat battle fatigue in Europe, under the supervision of Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, who went on to become the psychiatrist in charge of the Nazi war criminals at
Nuremberg Nuremberg (, ; ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the Franconia#Towns and cities, largest city in Franconia, the List of cities in Bavaria by population, second-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Bav ...
. Some of the General Semantics tradition was continued by Samuel I. Hayakawa.


Publications

* * '' Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics''. Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Science Press Printing Co. 1933.


See also

* * * * *


References


Further reading

* Kodish, Bruce. 2011. ''Korzybski: A Biography''. Pasadena, CA: Extensional Publishing. softcover, 978-09700664-28 hardcover. * Kodish, Bruce and Susan Presby Kodish. 2011. ''Drive Yourself Sane: Using the Uncommon Sense of General Semantics, Third Edition''. Pasadena, CA: Extensional Publishing. * Alfred Korzybski
''Manhood of Humanity''
foreword by Edward Kasner, notes by M. Kendig, Institute of General Semantics, 1950, hardcover, 2nd edition, 391 pages, .
Copy of the first edition
)

Alfred Korzybski, preface by Robert P. Pula, Institute of General Semantics, 1994, hardcover, 5th edition, .
Full text online
) * Alfred Korzybski

Institute of General Semantics, 1990, hardcover, * Montagu, M. F. A. (1953). Time-binding and the concept of culture. ''The Scientific Monthly'', Vol. 77, No. 3 (Sep., 1953), pp. 148–155. * Murray, E. (1950). In memoriam: Alfred H. Korzybski. ''Sociometry'', Vol. 13, No. 1 (Feb., 1950), pp. 76–77. * * * *


External links

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Australian General Semantics Society

Institute of General Semantics

Finding aid to Alfred Korzybski papers at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

YouTube video: Alfred Korzybski - The World Is NOT an Illusion
{{DEFAULTSORT:Korzybski, Alfred 1879 births 1950 deaths Writers from Warsaw Clan Abdank Polish emigrants to the United States Polish engineers 20th-century Polish philosophers Polish mathematicians Linguists from Poland General semantics People from Lakeville, Connecticut